Cinram International was a

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

-based manufacturer of pre-recorded Blu-ray Discs,

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

s, CD-Audio, CD-ROMs, VHS tapes and audio cassettes. It was an affiliate of the

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

-based Najafi Companies.

History

Cinram was established in 1969 in a

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

basement by Isidore Philosophe and Samuel Sokoloff. The company started manufacturing pre-recorded eight-track tapes and cassettes in 1969 in the basement of a commercial building in Montreal. More than three decades later, in 2003, the company completed a US$1.1 billion purchase of the music- and movie-manufacturing assets (

WEA Manufacturing WEA Manufacturing was the record, tape, and compact disc manufacturing arm of WEA International Inc. from 1978 to 2003, when it was sold and merged into Cinram International, a previous competitor. The last owner when the plant closed was Techn ...

) of New York media giant

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

. Also that year, it bought the United States manufacturing operations of

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

and, later, Universal Media & Logistics France from

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

. Cinram opened its first CD plant in 1987, when records and cassettes were still dominant. In the 1990s, the company started investing in manufacturing operations in Europe, and in 1997, when video-store racks were still filled with VHS tapes, Cinram formed a joint venture with Pacific Ocean Post (POP) to form "Cinram DVD Center POP" and began producing DVDs for movie studios and software CDs.

Bankruptcy

The company's fortunes began to decline with the rise of online streaming services. In 2010, Cinram lost its major contract for distributing

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

movies, and its stock began to fall. In 2012, the company sought bankruptcy protection from its creditors in the United States. It was bought by private investment firm Najafi Companies. In 2014, the company ended its manufacturing operations in Toronto. That year, it bought JVC America from JVC Kenwood. In 2015, it shut its

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population o ...

manufacturing plant. On November 3, 2015, Paris-based

Technicolor SA Vantiva SA, formerly Technicolor SA, Thomson SARL, and Thomson Multimedia, is a French multinational corporation that provides creative services and technology products for the communication, media and entertainment industries. Vantiva's headq ...

announced the acquisition of Cinram the same month. In 2017, Cinram closed down its European manufacturing plant at

Alsdorf Alsdorf () is a municipality in the district of Aachen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Until the 21st century Alsdorf was a mining area, but now many service companies have established themselves in Alsdorf. Alsdorf has an indoor arena, ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and in 2018, it shut its

Olyphant, Pennsylvania Olyphant is a borough in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is northeast of downtown Scranton, on the Lackawanna River in the heart of the anthracite region of the state. Its main source of employment was the mining and shipping o ...

manufacturing plant.

References

Manufacturing companies of Canada Compact disc Canadian companies established in 1969 {{canada-company-stub